Coaching legend considers PIL job

PREP WATCH: Ray Baker, who led Clackamas’ success, wants one more run

By Steve Brandon

The Portland Tribune, Apr 24, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Grant’s Alexys Gonado makes it safe despite a near tag Thursday by Wilson’s Amanda Stone in a game the Generals won 9-5.

L.E. BASKOW / P0RTLAND TRIBUNE

Todd Pasche, who coached Cleveland to the PIL 5A football title last fall, is stepping down after seven seasons.

And a prep coaching legend, Ray Baker, is among those interested in taking his place.

“I like the challenge of taking a place to a high level where we can consistently play anybody, anytime, anyplace, and I think Cleveland is one of those opportunities,” Baker says. “I want to go start over, one more time.”

Cleveland struggled for years in football until last season, when the Warriors had a solid senior corps and broke through at the new 5A level.

“I would like to build it up, really get it going,” says Baker, adding that he’d like to coach six to eight years. “And if they want to go 6A, that’s fine, let’s get it on.”

Baker, 60, turned Clackamas into a perennial playoff team before Joe Bushman took over that program last season. Baker has continued to teach health, physical education and strength and conditioning, and he would want to teach at Cleveland if he gets the football post. “I can recruit the hallway,” he says.

Baker has been a head or assistant coach at seven high schools and four colleges since 1967. Last year, the Medford native worked with former Cleveland player Rick Hennessy’s eighth-grade team in West Linn.

“I’ve tried to get into the PIL before –Jefferson twice and Benson once,” Baker says.

Putnam has an opening, too, but Baker says he’s not planning to apply for that job.

Pasche, meanwhile, plans to live in Ashland, where he starred for the Grizzlies in the 1980s.

• De La Salle North Catholic has hired an accomplished boys basketball coach in Forbes Lapp. He won Washington state titles with La Center in 1996 and 1997.

• Grant’s softball team went into the week undefeated in PIL 6A play (8-0, 13-2 overall). The Generals kept things interesting when one game was washed out last week. The bus turned around and returned to Grant, where the players launched into a spirited game of dodge ball. “We worked on our throwing and catching skills,” coach Debbie Engelstad says.

Hitting obviously hasn’t been a problem, either. “In 21 years, I can never remember having kids hit as well as this year,” Engelstad says. “We’re batting .414, with eight players over .300. It’s normally .238 or something like that. We’ve never been up over .350. And in one game in a monsoon we had only three hits but scored 13 runs.”

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